Florida pythons never stop eating. It could help them spread

MIAMI — Fueled by bountiful swamps that provide a steady supply of marsh rabbits, deer, wading birds and other meals, Burmese pythons in Florida have rapidly adapted to become hardier and more resistant to cold than their Asian cousins, a new study has found. “From the perspective of a snake the results are pretty obvious: you grow and reproduce.” The study is the latest to conclude Florida’s invasive pythons might be undergoing physiological changes that could allow the swamp-loving constrictors to become a bigger problem for Florida, which has been plundered by invasive species as contentious as Old World climbing fern and ubiquitous as iguanas. “That’s their hallmark and why they’re so cool as a lab rat, except that Florida pythons don’t seem to do it,” Castoe said. Even as they searched for clues to human diseases, Castoe said researchers were well aware of the python’s toll on South Florida’s Everglades, where the snakes have been blamed for driving down the population of small mammals, taking over as top predator and shifting the balance in a swamp that is vast but also vulnerable to small changes. “All year long they’re absolutely full of food.” In sorting through the genes, researchers found that almost all remained the same in snakes captured before and after the freeze.